


Conversations From A Nice Little Jail Cell

by Skyepilot



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Aliens, Confessions, F/M, Gen, Guest House dude, Humor, Hydra, Nick Fury - Freeform, Nova Corps, Phil powers, Raina - Freeform, Romance, SHIELD, Secrets Revealed, Skye powers, kiss, super powers, wild speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-05
Updated: 2014-05-06
Packaged: 2018-01-22 00:53:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1569962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyepilot/pseuds/Skyepilot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Skye and Coulson talk about her newly discovered powers as they sit in a jail cell.  Tropedydope.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Nice Superpower

"So, you can see weaknesses," he said. "Nice superpower," he added with a nod.

"Yes," she replied. She knew this was actually the beginning of a question, and that this was just the icebreaker. 

"That's come in handy," he acknowledged. "Guess I just thought it was your Hacker-Fu this whole time."

He was sitting against the wall of the tiny cell, jacket off, laid neatly on the floor. His tie was loosened, his sleeves rolled up. They were going to be here for awhile. It was an old HYDRA oubliette, probably French, pre-WWII. It was a place they dumped prisoners they wanted to forget for awhile. 

"Find the exploit. How many times did you ask me to do that?" she said from the dark, leaning into it.

"Lots," he smirked, looking down at the floor. "What am I thinking right now?" he asked, looking up at her.

"I'm not clairvoyant, A.C.," she rolled her eyes, realized it would be lost on him in the dark.

"But, it's kind of like that, right?" he asked. "I mean, you can tell from my body language, or the tone of my voice, my eye movements..."

"I can sense your anxiety," she said tensely. "And to be honest, it's not my favorite flavor on you."

He wanted to smile at that, but didn't.

"The N.O.V.A. file," he said, "It indicated that the Kree had been searching for you."

What it had actually said was 'Request GH Mahr Vehl status. And the reply: Terminated.

"It's not an acronym, by the way," she said flatly.

"Excuse me?" he asked.

"N.O.V.A. It means the Nova Corps. It's alien paramilitary."

"How do you figure?" he asked.

"The same way I know," she said, walking over and kneeling down in from of him, "that Marh Vehl is your little Guest House injection buddy."

Coulson tensed. The way she'd said it. His experiments. He swallowed. "All of this is because Raina used the machine on you..."

"Sure is," she said bluntly. "And then I scoured the full disclosure SHIELD files, and found all the references to N.O.V.A. And then the word 'TAHITI' came up. Not much there, but I obviously made the connection."

"I-I don't remember any of the details," Coulson said honestly. "I wish I could help."

"I know," she replied. "But Raina remembered the Nova Corps. And she told me why they were looking for me. And why they cooperated with SHIELD to take out the Kree Officer."

Coulson stood up, began walking around the small circular space. Lady Sif had told him the Kree had never been to Earth before. Was she lying? No, he had no reason to doubt Sif. If SHIELD was keeping secrets from the Asgardians, cooperating with paramilitary aliens... 

"She did other things, too," she continued, sounding distant, like she was drifting.

Coulson's eyes got wide, he got to his feet, went over to her, reached out.

"Don't," she said, tears starting to form, thrusting an arm between them.

He forgot for the moment that she could see all of his weaknesses. Forgot about the weight of yet another SHIELD betrayal, of his former self. This inexplicable knowing that it was more important than his own fears. 

"It's okay," he said, pulling her into an embrace.

She put her arms between them, fussed a bit to keep some distance, then gave in, letting him hug her. Tears began to fall, her arms went from her sides to pulling on his shirt, wrestling with something inside of herself.

"You want to know," she said, "If I've just been using your weaknesses, all this time, to get what I've wanted." she asked, with pleading eyes. 

He couldn't know, could he? Maybe she was doing it now. It frightened him. He'd lost so many things, and held on...to her.

"The thought did cross my mind," he said, looking down into her eyes. He let go of her, walked away. Took a deep breath and turned back. "My feelings for you, have not always been...professional." He said it like an apology.

"Yeah," she said, "That's been kind of confusing." A smile cracked at a corner of her mouth. "Fun, but confusing."

She was surprising him again. He thought he was either setting himself up for a 'You Dirty Old Man let me tell you something' speech or, the worst, a confession that she had maybe been manipulating him all along.

"This is kind of liberating, really," he said, relieved, awkward. "Knowing that you probably have a pretty good idea of what..."

Skye closed the distance, silencing him with a kiss. Her hands grabbing the lapels of the shirt and pulling him into her. It was a 'Phil, you're now officially talking too much, kiss.' His body tensed, and then he let his doubts go. He wrapped her in his arms, kissed her back.

"Okay," he gasped, "We definitely have to get out of here." He broke away and swooped up his jacket, began looking around, feeling the walls. Seeing the night sky above them, the greenery beginning to creep in from the grate 15 feet above.

"Wow, you're welcome," she said sarcastically.

"Skye," he said, grinning back at her. "*That* is not happening in a place like *this*," he resumed feeling along the walls, the floor. "What are you doing Friday night?"

"You mean if we escape from this hole in the ground?" 

"No, I mean *when* we get out of here, because we *are*, and, y'know, what do you think about Paris? Ever been?"

She just blinked. This guy.

"I said Raina did other things to me," she nodded. "Well, one of them," her eyes turned to Phil, he caught a flash of green in them, right? "Is this," she said, her fists closing, concentration forming on her face, as Phil looked up and saw vines from above push the grate away and begin climbing downward, downward, growing towards them.

"Please tell me you are doing that," he said, a little freaked out.

"Yes," she said, when they'd reached the bottom, touching the floor. "They know Cotati. Like Raina."

"So," he said, motioning to the vines, "You could do that the whole time?"

Skye shrugged. "Some other stuff had to get out of the way first," she said dryly.

"My weaknesses, you see them? All of them?" 

She nodded. "But you taught me something valuable, Phil," she said, grabbing one of the vines, wrapping it around her wrist. "That a shield exists to protect the weakest parts."

He was kind of awestruck.

Paris, it would be.

"Coming?" she asked, as the vine lifted her upwards.


	2. Can you read my mind?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coulson talks with Skye about his powers while they are trapped underground.

"So, which of you am I talking to right now?" she asked, flatly.

"It doesn't work that way," he said with exasperation.

"Do you tell him stuff about me, or does he just know it because you know it?"

"Never thought about that," he said. "I sense him more when there is Kree tech around."

"Can you read my mind?" she asked, then smiled. "What color is my underwear?"

Coulson chuckled.

"More like a heightened awareness or something. Stars...galaxies, I'm not sure how it's supposed to help me, considering we're subterranean."

They were wedged in between two carved stone walls. The tomb was probably 25 feet underground. Coulson had triggered one of the traps when he had (a little stubbornly, if he were being honest with himself) proceeded before listening to Skye's warning, because he was tired of fielding questions and had wanted to tune her out. 

"He was hunting me down, right?" she asked, watching him feel along the walls.

Yes, he was. They knew that much. Coulson had learned about the alien with persistent digging, and also a nice, long-overdue confrontation with Fury.

"Yes, Coulson, you ran TAHITI, who else would I trust that to? Well, I needed you, what with HYDRA in every corner, my ace in the hole. The Nova Corps? How the hell do you know about that, and don't give me some vague Frank Sinatra, Rat Pack-ass, sounding response. Was it the girl? Yeah, I know she has a name. Look, we cut a deal, the Kree sent sentries to scout Earth, we didn't want a full-scale invasion on our hands. Not before we had the Avengers in place. Yeah, we were invaded, but it bought us some time, Coulson. It bought us *time*." 

The Guest House drug had done more than just revive him. There was someone else swimming around inside him now. 

"Hey, Ms. Weakness Finder, want to lend a hand?" he interrupted with aggravation, wanting to cancel his own thoughts.

She shut her eyes for a moment. "There's no vegetation down here," she answered, shaking her head. "And anyway, when are you going to figure out that wristwatch thing?"

Coulson looked down at the watch on his right arm. Fury had coughed it up. The alien had worn it when he was passing for a human. It looked like a Casio from the 80s, digital display. Pretty cheezy way to disguise alien tech, if you asked him. Why couldn't it look like a vintage '61 Rolex Cosmograph 'Paul Newman'? Shame, really. 

"We did come down here to find something Kree, right?" she added.

True.

A light went on in his head. He looked at the indentations in the walls, mounded in sand, shaved off when they'd dropped down to seal them in. He ran his finger along a crease, it came loose, he began brushing at the wall.

Skye realized what he'd seen, there was something drawn in the walls. She walked toward it when he'd wiped more away, put her finger in the depression that screamed out to her.

"I think you need to put your 'rad' timepiece in this slot," she mentioned.

He walked over to her. Sure enough, it was in the same shape. He shrugged, fitted his wrist to the wall.

Nothing happened.

Skye said, "Maybe if you yell, 'I have the power!'," laughing and snorting a bit at her own joke.

Coulson pulled his arm away from the wall, but it wouldn't budge. He pulled harder, grabbed it with his other arm. "Skye, Skye! Something's happening!"

She reached for him, as he pulled his arm away from the wall and smirked.

"Syke."

"You didn't just do that," she stared. "Tell me that you didn't just..."

Coulson stopped listening and turned to look at the wall. The crevices were turning a pale, electric green. It was coursing, pulsing, making its way through the wall as the room groaned.

"This does not sound good," Coulson said.

The energy was moving more quickly now, crossing the floor under their feet, running up through the ceiling. Coulson looked up when the ceiling began to rumble. They glanced at one another as the ceiling began to slide down. There wasn't much time. 

"Phil," she said, slowly. "Put...the...watch...back in the wall."

He was already running to the wall, placed the watch back in, waited a few seconds.

"No good," he said, shaking his head. He tried it again. There was nothing left to do, nothing to prop against the walls, no weaknesses to exploit. Just Skye, standing there, as the ceiling lowered. He couldn't stand it. They'd been making jokes a few seconds before, but after all the close calls, she knew all his secrets, she didn't care, he could live in a world without secrets now. He couldn't lose her.

Not after he'd just really found her.

She had instinctively already started to crouch. She grabbed him and smiled, closing her eyes, serenely. Well, dammit, he wasn't doing meditation these days! He pushed his arm against the ceiling above them, his hand touching the energy coursing through its nooks and crannies, the pressure on his arm unbearable.

"No," he said. It was unfair. A thought inside said: Command. "Stop!!!" he yelled, the fury building up in him coming out, the wall above crumbling around him from the force exerted against it, rocks falling around them as the ceiling receded, covering them in debris and dust.

He pushed out of the rubble, and began to search, dig, panicked.

"Skye?..Skye!!!?"

She was unconscious, he ran a hand over her forehead, knew she was alive. Just knew. How?

He picked her up gently, looked out beyond the debris, the cloud of dust. The wall was gone. There was a giant chamber open on the other side, waiting. The same pale light running all through it. 

He laid her gently down on a slab, made sure she was okay, breathing. Then looked over the control panel at the center of the rock formation. There was the watch shape again. No way.

The characters covering everything, it was a language, he knew it.

"Okay," he said aloud. "Talk." He crossed his arms.

An image came up on the monitor above the control panel. An alien, distorted face. It began speaking, in a voice he couldn't understand.

The thought was: Ask the watch.

Coulson wasn't sure, but he didn't have anything to loose. "Translate?" he said hesitantly to the watch.

"Now that's ironic," Skye said, walking over to him slowly.

"You alright?" he asked. She nodded, put her arm around his waist, looking up at the screen with him.

"Supreme Intelligence Directive 424: Terminate all operations. Destroy technology. Hide among them. We are compromised. The One is here. Await orders." 

Skye said, "I want to get out of here, now."

Coulson knew why. Raina had told her. She was that 'One'.

"Okay," he said, "Let's go."

The thought said, Get the suit first. No, Coulson told himself. Don't be an idiot, the thought replied. "How?" he said aloud. His eyes looked over to the the watch shape housed in the control panel. Not doing it, he told himself.

Skye's face blanched, "He's talking to you, isn't he?"

"Yeah," Coulson said.

"How do you know he's not trying to keep me here?" she asked. "That is his mission, right?"

"I can't say that," Coulson whispered to himself.

"Phil! Stop talking to him and talk to me!"

"He says," Phil looked at her apologetically, "That your underwear is purple, with little blue flowers on it. Sorry."

"Okay, then," she replied.

**Author's Note:**

> Wild Speculation:
> 
> There is nothing I love more than wild speculation about how AoS connects to the Marvel movies. A lot of my speculation here ties in with the release of Guardians of the Galaxy in August 2014.
> 
> Skye is Mantis, a classic Marvel character with an 084 status who was raised in an Asian country and whose powers include exploiting weaknesses and the ability to communicate with plant life. She is also the Celestial Madonna, a character that is destined to give birth to the Savior of the Universe. Mantis was hidden by her father with the Priests of Pama (a pacifist Kree religious order - hmm sounds suspiciously similar to nuns) to protect her, and her true nature was hidden from her for many years.
> 
> SHIELD cooperated with Nova Corps to kill/capture the Kree in the Guest House (I'm speculating it's the Kree Captain Marvel), which will tie in to the film Guardians of the Galaxy. SHIELD's motivation was to prevent a Kree invasion of Earth. Nova Corps' motivation was to prevent the Kree from obtaining Skye/Mantis, the Celestial Madonna.
> 
> Raina, and her "flower" obsession, is a Cotati, a telepathic race of plant-based aliens that seek the Celestial Madonna. The old Coulson had her mind wiped as part of Project TAHITI, which is why she is interested in having her memories restored.


End file.
